The Secret Driver Of US Health Care Costs

A pioneering new study provides a first-of-its-kind look into the outsized effect that lobbying and political maneuverings have on health care spending. Americans spend significantly more on health care than any other country. Why?  Economists' answers to this question (of which there are many) range from opaque pricing to hospital monopolies to creeping consolidation to pharmacy benefit managers to medical licensing to Medicare being unable to negotiate drug prices to abusive IP practices by pharmaceutical firms. Politics is another, seemingly obvious factor. The federal government is responsible for nearly a third of all health care spending, and the health care …